In Durham, North Carolina, a shopping mall parking lot has become the home to a very unusual structure. It is a hybrid between a coffee shop, a trailer home, a drive-through, and an information kiosk; and this small shack sits amidst a sea of asphalt with nothing more than an awning graphic, on the peaks of it's gabled roof, to announce its presence.

Sitting on a curbed parking lot median, it removes the concept of the "Roadside Shed," described in Robert Venturi's book "Learning from Las Vegas," from the presence of a roadside. This seems to violate several unwritten rules of supply and demand. In general a parking lot is not typically a destination, in and of itself. In addition, the location of such a small structure [when compared to the scale of typical roadside "sheds" - such as the shopping mall seen in the background of the above photo] does not lend itself to attracting the attention of vehicular traffic [the mobile commerce on which all roadside architecture depends].

Therefore, on a Saturday morning, one would not expect to find an oasis of caffeinated beverages in a sleepy mall parking lot. But strangely enough, it was there, and there was a line of cars waiting to be served.

The proprietor noticed me taking pictures, and when I responded that I publish and write for an online Architecture journal, he was more than happy to talk a little about the 12 foot by 12 foot kiosk which he was standing in. He mentioned that it was all steel construction, and that it was prefabricated off site and then moved into place.

With a few more of these small shacks in the parking lot, side to side with each other, along paved lanes of vehicular and/or pedestrian traffic, one ends up with a strikingly urban assemblage. There would be a sweet irony in the growth of a small city around the hulking carcass of a suburban shopping mall.